


Reminded me of someone

by galaxyostars



Series: The DMC Collection [11]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, DMC Hanami Week, Explicit Language, Guns, Shooting Guns, Stitches, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23748205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxyostars/pseuds/galaxyostars
Summary: Lady swung the door open to see him, the youngest of the Sparda bloodline. But she didn’t greet him with a surprised ‘oh, hey’ like usual. She threw the door back into his face, leaping behind the wall. By the time Nero processed what was happening, the door was open again, and he had a shotgun pressed against his nose.“Who the hell are you?”
Relationships: Lady & Nero (Devil May Cry)
Series: The DMC Collection [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1387243
Comments: 7
Kudos: 80





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Last one for Hanami Week! Hope you're all ready for some Yamato-inspired time travel nonsense!

In hindsight, having Dante teach him how to conjure bullets out of nothing was a smart move on all their parts. Not that it made a difference here, but having to buy ammunition after this nightmare would’ve proven quite the financial pain in the ass.

Nero slid out of the way, a ball of flames bursting behind him. He and Dante were fast, but no amount of demonic super-speed could keep them ahead of this devil. It flashed in and out of existence, balls of fire and lightning disturbing the devil hunters’ ability to see in the dark. Such things hadn’t stopped Vergil ( _of fucking course_ ) but Nero was slower to adapt. His lack of practise in these circumstances made him bitter.

A demonic tentacle snapped back into existence. It smacked Vergil to the ground, Yamato clanging against the ground. Bright blue eyes closed, his face scrunching. He tried to push himself back to his feet… but he barely moved an inch. Another inky black tentacle thrust down, impaling Vergil into the ground. He choked on his own blood.

Holy _shit_. Vergil was down for the count? _How_?

Ebony and Ivory were like machine guns. Dante’s rapid fire echoed off the forest trees, and would be heard for days. Mussel flashes were no longer flashes, but a long stream of yellow light, almost like torches in the darkness. They were no good to see the demon – striking purple eyes zipped through the air and disappeared again — but the light shocked the demon off of Vergil, freeing the dark slayer from impalement. He remained on the ground, body trying to heal the fist-sized hole in his abdomen.

The demon materialised in front of Nero. He acted on instinct. Blue Rose in his hand, he squeezed the trigger. He didn’t hear his own shots, but he felt each bullet leaving the revolver.

One two three—reload.

One two three—reload.

One two— _shtick._

Time stopped in the single second he inspected the revolver. The purple eyed dimension hopping tentacle demon leapt for him. A flash of red barrelled him out of the way; Dante slid on his feet, coat sweeping the ground behind him. He brought his self-named sword up, abandoning his firearms for the moment.

The demon paused, sizing Dante up. Dante took it as an opportunity to get back onto the same page with Nero.

“We can’t beat this thing ourselves.”

Nero’s eyes widened. He struggled to his feet. “Then what do we do?”

“Our swords are useless against this thing. We need something explosive…” Dante swore under his breath. "Take Yamato. Get Lady. We need her firepower.”

“ _I’m not leaving you-”_

“If you don’t, we’re both gonna get shish-kabobed,” Dante snapped. “Firepower is a requirement here – and yours just jammed. Yamato doesn’t respect me as its wielder, but it _will_ respond to _you_. Now _go!_ ” He kicked Yamato over to him. “Get back here with Lady as soon as you can!”

 _Yeah, get Lady_ , Nero snarked to himself, snatching Yamato from the ground. Dante stood in front of him, Devil Sword Dante in a ready position. Nero unsheathed Yamato and turned. Dante bounded forward for the demon.

Why did Blue Rose jam? Was it even a jam? Had Vergil’s knock-down distracted him somehow? Sure, Nero could go after Lady, but she was more fragile than all of them. Nero had only ever seen her in action a handful of times, if that, and her practise was to remain on the sidelines to take potshots at demons. Her aim was no better than Dante’s. She was human. Humans bleed – a _lot_.

Nero braced himself. The power of Yamato coursed through his veins. It was a drug he hadn’t tasted in months. The sword slashed through the air, making clean cuts. He re-sheathed the weapon-

“ _Nero!_ ”

-the demon smashed into the back of his head. He fell through the portal, losing his footing entirely. His skull hit something cold, hard, and wet.

He heard himself groan, only for his eyes to close.

So much for only _humans_ being frail.

* * *

His nose crinkled. Water dripped right onto its tip. Once. Twice. Nero frowned in his sleep. Was there a leak in the ceiling again? Didn’t he fix that?

The droplet rolled down his nose to his cheek. He rubbed the side of his face into his pillow. It squelched under the weight of his head.

His eyelids cracked open, blue eyes still hazed over. White noise muffled the crack of thunder overhead. A rusted blue wall, ridged in the middle, extended past his view, casting a light shadow over him. A bug crawled down his arm.

Where _was_ he?

Nero sat up with a groan, shaking the bug off his arm. His hand pressed into a black plastic bag, something inside poking into his palm. Something smelled _horrendous_.

Wait a minute. Was he in a _dumpster_?

_Where’s Yamato!?_

Strength returned to his muscles. Adrenaline fueled his frantic search around the dumpster, only half-filled with assorted rubbish. He pulled bags out from their place, throwing the trash around. It was fruitless. He couldn’t hear Yamato sing.

He leapt out of the dumpster, brushing off the waste clinging to his jacket. Rain greyed out his surroundings, but they looked vaguely familiar. He pressed a light hand to the back of his head – it ached, but not seriously. He scrubbed at his face, wincing slightly when his hand rubbed over something tender.

Did he have… gravel rash? Had he seriously fallen face-first into the road? He growled at himself as he did up his jacket. He needed to find Lady. And if there was at least _one_ good thing to come out of this experience, it was that this looked like her neighbourhood.

He didn’t often find himself wearing his hood. Usually he reserved that kind of thing for the cover of darkness, staking out a demon hive in the pitch black of night, his eyes glowing to spark fear into cold devils.

How dramatic of him.

The back of his coat whipped against his legs in the ice-cold wind. Nero took to crossing his arms over his chest, the hunch of his shoulders helping keep the hood over his head. He recognised the street – more of a ‘back-end road’ on the outskirts of the city. It was home to low-income earners, a trailer park vibe emanating off the chain-link fences. Most of the homes here were cream, sporting flat roofs – built fast and on a budget. It was a dust-bowl, and usually one or two scruffy, dirty kids would ride bikes down the road, carefree of any cars. A safe, but questionable neighbourhood.

He didn’t recall so many bars bolted onto the neighbourhood’s windows, though. Perhaps he’d overlooked them, only seeing them now because he was stuck walking down the street in the cold rain. On a typical day, they’d have driven to Lady’s place. The pathway to her door was peppered with dirt, remnants of someone having kicked her plants out from their beds. Nero frowned at this oddity; Lady had hired a gardener in recent years as a favour to one of these families. She must be mortified by this.

He rapped his knuckles on the door, staring briefly through the peer-hole before looking elsewhere. Lady’s motorbike sitting on the porch near the door caught his eye while he waited – it was shiny, almost _too_ clean.

Telltale foot thumps stomped around inside. They paused for a moment, before he heard Lady’s muffled voice as she undid the deadbolt locks on her door. “Dante? What the hell have you done to your-”

Before Nero could correct her, she swung the door open to see him, the youngest of the Sparda bloodline. But she didn’t greet him with a surprised ‘oh, hey’ like usual. She threw the door back into his face, leaping behind the wall. By the time Nero processed what was happening, the door was open again, and he had a shotgun pressed against his nose.

“ _Who the hell are you_?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nero meets a young Lady.

“ _Who the hell are you_?”

Nero’s eyes were wide, incredulous. _What the hell is this?_ Why was _he_ suddenly a threat? Carefully, gingerly, he unwrapped his arms from his coat, raising them. “Is this a joke?”

“You sure aren’t laughing, are you?”

“Lady, it’s _me_.”

“Yeah? Me _who_?”

“ _Me_! Nero! Fuck- could you _put the shotgun down_!?”

“I don’t know any ‘Nero’s.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Nero snapped. “You helped Nico and I put the van back together last week!”

“I don’t know any ‘Nico’s, either.”

His hands acted without thinking. He slid his head to the left, forcing the gun over his shoulder. It fired, the shot rattling his right eardrum, but his body turned and he elbowed Lady back into her flat. She’d let go of the gun, and it remained in his hand. Nero rubbed at his ringing ear, barely hearing Lady hiss. He had half-expected her to launch back into action, pull another firearm out from somewhere like usual, but she remained against the floorboard wall, gripping her upper arm tightly with her bottom lip caught between her teeth. A slither of red trailed down her white top. Nero’s concern was short-lived, however.

She looked… _different_. _Wrong_ , somehow. Nothing had changed, not really. But her hair was the wrong length. Her stature was different. The scar over her nose more jaggered.

And now that he got to glance around her flat, everything had been moved around. The ripped-up flower bed had been his first clue, and that motorbike never left her garage when she parked it. Now that he looked out her window, he realised the reason the motorbike wasn’t in her garage was because she didn’t appear to _have_ a garage.

“What the _hell_ is going on?” he demanded, the shotgun clasped tight at his side.

“What do you want?” Lady snarled, pulling her hand away from her shoulder for a moment. It was stained with her blood – not a serious wound, but it needed looking at.

“You seriously don’t recognise me?” Nero swung the shotgun to rest on his shoulder, his head tilting in confusion.

Her frown deepened, her eyes piercing through him. “You… look like a friend of mine.”

“Dante.”

Lady rose her chin at him. “You know Dante?”

“Shit, you really _don’t_ know me, do you?”

“Well maybe you can enlighten me, then,” she snapped, pushing past him. She stomped to her bathroom, pulling off the button-down shirt as she did so. The action smeared red down the pale skin of her arm. Rudimentary stitches had burst at the recoil of her shotgun fire.

Nero followed, but he sought Blue Rose and made sure he had quick access to it for a worst-case scenario. While she rummaged through her supplies behind the cracked bathroom mirror, he took a seat on the edge of her bathtub. He put the shotgun down behind him. “I’m... _fuck_ , how do I explain this…”

“Explain how you know Dante, and we’ll start from there,” she said, examining a needle and thread. Oh. So that’s why her stitches came apart – she’d done them herself.

“I’m part of the Sparda bloodline.”

She froze, an eye twitching. “ _Is that right_?”

“Yeah.”

“So, what, you’re Dante’s brother?”

“Uh…” Jeez. Had he crossed dimensions or something? How old did he look? Or… maybe… “W-when- uh… what day is it?”

Lady’s head snapped to him with a grimace across her face. “Saturday.”

He sighed. “Sure. What year?”

“Are you shitting me?”

“Just humour me.”

“Fine. It’s ninety-three.”

The world stopped. His eyes stared at the ugly green tile on Lady’s bathroom wall. It was cracked, as if someone (probably her) had kicked it in. Frankly, the colour was fitting for the early nineties.

Crap. He’d only just been born. What a weird sensation. He really needed to find the Yamato.

“So…” he frowned a little. “Temen-ni-gru…”

“What about it?”

“How long ago was that?”

Lady started cutting what remained of her original stitches and started putting them out thread by thread. “I don’t know you.”

“I’m-” How did he tell a young Lady fresh from Temen-ni-gru that he was Vergil’s son? As soon as he name-dropped Vergil, he’d surely be shot about a million times. He brought his ankle up to rest on his opposite knee, tapping his fingers against his boot. “I’m Nero. I’m related to Dante.”

“Yeah, we covered that,” she growled.

“Dante entrusted the Yamato to me.”

Lady’s hand stilled, her blue and red eyes narrowing. She looked him up and down, stare resting on his face as if trying to discern whether he was lying. “Dante? _My_ Dante? Gave _you_ Yamato?”

“…yeah.”

“Small problem,” her lips cracked up in the corners. “Yamato fell into hell with its owner. You’re talking out of your ass.” Lady ripped thread off its roll, snapping it apart with her teeth.

“It’s a long story.”

“As you can see, I’ve got the time.”

Nero huffed. “Yamato cuts through our dimension to open portals-”

“It cuts through _what?_ ”

“Like I said, it’s a long story,” he sighed, choosing to gloss over how Vergil had uncovered that ability shortly after liberation from hell. “Dante made me use it to come and get you.”

She looked him up and down again. “You don’t look like you’re concealing a katana.”

“I’m not. I got beat over the head with the demon we were fighting and I… lost it.”

Lady swore as she dropped the needle. Her face turned red in anger, steam practically rising from her head. “ _Dante entrusted one of the most powerful demon weapons in existence and you **lost** it!?_”

“It’s not my fault!” he rose his hands, shaking them frantically as he leaned away from her scrutiny. “The hit to my head knocked me flat, and I passed out on arrival! Then I woke up in a dumpster and Yamato was gone!”

“Gone, huh?” she backed off, crossing her arms. Another dribble of blood slithered down her arm, and a grimace fell across Nero’s face.

He stood while she examined her arm again. Lady was using fairly rudimentary means of keeping herself together – sure, this thread was safe to use on her arm, but the job was sloppy. She was in pain. Such things also weren’t unusual, but… come on. Lady’s human. At what point was it okay for her to take a step back and admit she was having some issues.

Never mind Nero indirectly caused this. But he figured if she’d fired her gun at him without so much as a warning, the next person on her doorstep was bound to suffer the same treatment. With thread pullers in one hand, he took her arm in the other. If she thought him to be a threat, she wasn’t commenting on it. In fact, her shoulders fell a little – was she… relieved?

“I know you don’t know who I am,” Nero said slowly, taking a stained flannel from her countertop to gently dab away blood from the open wound and continuing to tug the snapped threads away, “but I need your help.”

“With finding Yamato.”

“Yes,” he sighed. “I get why you’re not keen on helping me – the last time someone dropped by my house unannounced, my right arm got torn off. I understand. But I _need_ Yamato to help Dante.”

Lady shook her head. “Dante can handle himself. Look for Yamato on your own time.”

Nero sucked in a sharp breath. Sure, Dante might have been able to handle whatever the 1990s had thrown at him – which really, hadn’t been all that much. From what Nero had learned from the devil hunter, the greatest challenge of his youth had been T _emen -ni-gru_. Then came Mallet Island about a decade later, maybe. Both had involved Vergil in some capacity, and both had resulted in some ‘personal growth’ for Dante.

If Temen-ni-gru was “beginners stuff” (as according to Dante), then this subspace dimension jumping asshole of a demon was “advanced stuff” in comparison. But getting a twenty-something (was she even in her twenties yet? Holy shit…) Lady to understand that Dante did in fact need some help wasn’t going to be easy, was it?

“If you don’t help me find it, Dante and my father are going to miss my wedding.”

There. He said it. That was the biggest issue on his mind. Not that they’d die – they’d claw themselves back out of hell if necessary, it wasn’t that big of a deal – but the recovery time of that would overlap with the plans he’d already made with Kyrie. That was unacceptable. Trivial in the grand scheme of things, but unacceptable.

Lady stared at him, eyebrows cracking into a perplexed frown for a moment. Then came the laughter. Her face, scorned with a youthful anger, softened into amusement he hadn’t seen from her.

“Alright, kid,” she wheezed, and before Nero could think on how or why she’d called him ‘kid’, she continued, “I’ll help you find Yamato.”

“Wait, really?”

“Family’s important. I of all people know that.”

 _She of all people._ Nero gave her a weak smile, placing the thread puller back onto the countertop. He threaded the needle and gestured to it. “Ready for this?”


End file.
